Down the stairs leads into a small hallway lit by dimmed down by blue christmas lights, at the end are two doors, a white painted one with a padlock and a black painted one. The black door has an old fashioned clock embedded into the wood. The gears seem to be spinning backwards.

Inside of the black door there is a room that is almost always filled with a smoky haze. The vents in the corners of the room help with the place not becoming too stuffy a couple large fans are positioned to help with the smoke if it becomes too much. Fabrics of various vibrant and muted colors and large comfy pillows fill the room, there is a work area in a corner filled with blank canvases and unfinished paintings. A few cabinets and bookcases are placed around the room. The room at large seems to hold a large number of completed paintings. Hanging on the wall or stacked against each other or in piles, the Three Mothers hangs over a fireplace tucked into the corner. There is an old beat up round table which an ornate glass bong sits in the center placed alongside a large black hookah. A deck of playing cards and a few candles are placed in the center.

There’s snow on the streets of Phoenix Heights this morning, some doorsteps have been sholved or moved aside by various makeshift tools. The doorway of Cat’s Cradle has recently been cleared but the sassy bartender that works there has been shooed away. Still the doors are open, a light layer of the snow on the inside. The soft, soothing sounds of Fleetwood Mac drift out of the speakers echoing through the place. The place isn’t opened yet but there’s a lone stray cat prowling around the place.

Seated in that large comfortable armchair that she usually perches in is Eve, dressed in a simple black dress. Her dark hair disheveled, she might have just woken up. In her hand sits a half finished joint. She’s musing, on recent events. Time travel, dying and not dying. She lets out soft sigh, smoke billowing out to the ceiling above her.

The stray cat finds itself hoisted easily off the floor. Reflex has it stretching its claws out for a moment, trying to pick at the grain of the floor, but it winds up bundled up in the circle of a man's arms and that's pleasant enough that opts not to lay open his face to the bone. It knows him, a little. He's been here before, the one who smells of cordite, secondhand cloves, thirdhand cologne, and the mineral undertone of river bottoms. He's wearing a leather jacket, because of course. Snow crystals freckle the collar of the sweater he has on underneath.

Mostly, you can tell Ghost is Ghost because his hair is longer and he doesn't have a beard. But also, he walks in without looking around for anyone, because he's already found her, and he isn't looking for service. "Buonasera," he says. Then he stoops down to kiss the top of the oracle's head.

“Sei in anticipo,” is said with a sly grin as the man known as Ghost strides over to kiss her on the forehead. “You smell nice,” she comments softly as she breathes in his scent. She takes a puff of her spliff and looks up at Ghost with a raised brow, “Have you been behaving?” Whatever that means for Eve because if asked.. The answer to whether or not she has been behaving might be no. The seer runs a pale hand over the top of Ghost’s head, fingers brushing the longer locks that he had. It was still strange, seeing the face of Teo but knowing that it wasn’t the same Teo. Probably how it felt for Ghost to see Eve and it not being the Eve from his time.

The stray meows in his arms and Eve points with a bare toe at a plate of freshly baked cookies sitting on the table to the side. “Fresh out the oven,” there’s always food when he comes back. Oddly, Eve remembered how to cook and watch the stove when it was for him.

Those light gray eyes of hers study him, he doesn’t look bruised or hurt badly and that’s the sort of shape she likes to see him in. A quirk of a smile at the corner of her lips. Smoke trailing around her hand before she ashes the spliff in an ashtray.

The Ghost will be in worse shape in a couple of weeks, but that's a vision and a set of pain responses for a different time.

For now, he snatches up a cookie and thumps himself on the floor, just off to the side of her armchair, having failed to grow out of some of his stranger habits in all those intervening habits. He still prefers to be down here. It probably doesn't have much to do with boats anymore. It's a quirk that falls short of ostentatious, isn't quite disruptive. The cat bites his finger without intent. He smiles at it.

"And the other kid is going to be right on time, isn't he?"

He would've come by even if it weren't so. He cares about Eve, in a way that is neither exactly obscure nor removed, but it's different like she knows. Because he knew the other her. It was a different woman whose floor he used to sit his ass on. Whose cookies he'd eat and clocks he'd replace the batteries for and bathtub he'd recaulk. Who he'd joke with, that his toolbox and wifebeater looked like they were out of an inappropriate video about profoundly fictionalized handymen. He likes hanging around her more than he likes hanging around most people.

But she's expecting one other guest tonight.

The floor is an acceptable place to park your ass and Eve remembers his habits, those tics. The things that makes her care for him in that way. No stranger to strange habits, a pale hand goes out to stroke the back of his head as she stares forward at the door leading to the outside. Spliff being smoked faster, as if she's preparing for something. For him.//

"Kiddo is right on schedule. You both have a way with arriving…" Her gaze down at him, hand still there massaging the back of his neck. Smoke blowing out from her nostrils.

This is when it gets awkward for Eve, having a connection to all of them. She cares for them but the Ghost is the one closer to her. She gets the oddness, the strange behavior, the looks his eyes can give. He understands her, her oddness, the strange behavior, the weed she smoked, the antics. A trust between them.

"Don't be so.. rough," is her only warning if you could call it that. "There are still a lot of.. bumps along the road." She doesn't have to deal with her other doppelgangers and can't begin to imagine how much of a head knocker that can be.

Head knockers are sometimes easier when you're the one both physically and metaphorically knocking the heads, which is often true of Ghost, who looks nearly feline now himself. He looks at her, his pale eyes thinning sphinxy, pupils contracting, his mouth bending around one of those smiles that people always think their mouse-murdering pets are giving them.

Abruptly, the actual cat spills out of his hands. His hair sleeks under her fingers and he shifts himself up on his knees so quick that he might not have bothered with the intervening space.

Don't be so rough. There was absolutely a vulgar joke in there somewhere, but he was always more with the swearing than making sexah digs out loud. Instead, he lunges his mouth up against her mouth, the shape of his smile folding into the leonine maw of a kiss. He wraps an arm around her waist. The uneaten cookie clicks down on the table past her. He fits between her knees, warm, bulky, creaking leather. He kisses her then says, "No?" making a little fun. "You said, 'don't?'"

The not soft kiss is returned and Eve is taken by his quick movements, he’s fast. Always has been, faster than her or she allows him to catch her it could be either. Raven dark hair tickles his and her faces as they break lip to lip contact and she’s staring into his pale eyes with her own light gray ones. The absence of a beard is nice and she notes that she doesn’t like the beard better on any of the Teo’s. Pale fingers move to run down Ghost’s face and she gives him that devilish grin that he knows. It means for her mischief was on the way. Wasn’t it always with her? “Well,” she bites her lip before leaning forward to nip at the bottom of his own lip a little hard.

The light of the place reflect in her eyes as she tilts her head to regard Ghost with that look. “Maybe a little is okay,” she snickers and is nibbling on his nose next with”Ok, a lot. You are naughty,” a grin. “A naughty, naughty rough man.” She sticks her tongue out, “La mia lince.”

Both her hands come to rest on his leather covered arms and leans forward a bit to smell him before she tries to take him by surprise with that wild grin. Moving in for a kiss unexpectedly, this one hungry, wild. Like her, she nuzzles his neck with an audible, “Meow.” It’s a joke between them. She’s a Cheshire Cat afterall. Or the Blue Catepillar..she always got it mixed up.

Well. Alice had always sounded terribly stoned in Wonderland. The analogy works on multiple levels.

That there always seemed to be some form of lovely monster interested in consuming her, one way or another, too. His mouth is warm. His hands are warm. When Tavisha remade his body, he got a lot right, not the least of which was Teodoro Laudani's ferocious metabolism, which seems to operate on a cellular level with the same subtle violence with which he gropes his hands up her hips, her waist, the black fabric of her dress bunching richly between his fingers. He puts his tongue in her mouth, his forelocks grazing her pale forehead.

She's not wrong. He is naughty. It has very little to do with being an impressive metaphorical cat, and very much to do with the young man who next tromps up to the door behind them.

"That's—" the other Teodoro's voice sounds nearly identical to the Ghost's. The note of genuine exasperation, secondhand embarrassment— that's what sets them apart. "—just great. Thank you. Should I come back later?"

The cat (literal cat) meows.

It isn't often that Eve gets physical in this sort of way. Usually she has her head in the clouds, in dreams, down a tuba, in a cloud of marijuana, as she does. Her antics pushing most potential suitors far away. Oddly enough, neither Teo had minded her oddities and Ghost especially had his own set of curious behaviors.

The violence of his kiss is met just as fiercely by Eve's hunger, to connect. Pale fingers slide and grip his hair but not to hurt she grins into that kiss feeling all the devilish inside, losing herself in that moment and scooting closer to her fellow Italian. Or was she pulled? It doesn't matter to her. Losing herself so much that she forgets that kiddo is on the way. The first Teo she met, all those years ago during the Phoenix days.

The notion that she could forget about the first Teo even if just for a moment, said a lot, there was a time when he was a focus of her dreams. Checking on him a to many time, worried he would do something nuts (black kettle! Lmfao) More friend than lover but they had their awkward moments together still. Those moments aren't totally on the forefront of her mind and so when he makes his surprised and embarrassed entrance, her cheeks redden and she stops the kiss, tangled her hand in his air.

"No no."

The midnight haired woman shakes her head as she catches her breath and dislodges herself from him giving a lookup at his eyes. 'We good?' it all but says. Padding over on bare feet and the smoke of the joint she picked back up trailing behind her. Eve hopes Ghost follows her. Greeting Tel halfway, she grips his arms and gives him a kiss on the cheek. Radioso come sempre.

They will probably will need to start drinking some of the liquor on stock.

The hybrid Teo looks flatly exasperated, but funnily enough, the less of the Ghost that there is in his field of vision, the less irritated his face gets. It's like one of those color change T-shirts or a glow-in-the-dark object. You slide it under some shade, into a little darkness, and suddenly the proper colors come out. And Ghost is about as irritating as trying to stare into direct sunlight, when the hybrid is concerned.

Eve, on the other hand, he likes. He lets her grasp his arms and he folds her in, embracing her. When he lets her go, he presses a kiss to his fingers and then nudges it affectionately into her cheek, as if passing the little token on there. "I'm just stopping through on the way to Rochester," he says. "Thanks for seeing me." He'd figured he'd likely as not get a text— or at leased see a very obvious Closed sign up front, if she hadn't been up to receive company. "How are you? How's business?"

He's not asking his other self.

“Oh thanks for seeing me,” Eve lowers her voice to mimic Teo’s with a serious expression on her face before breaking out in laughter, it rings around them. Taking Teo’s hand she drags him over towards the bar. Chuckling still at that formal way of saying things. Eve plucks a bottle of her nicer tequila from under the bar. She slides three glasses onto the surface and smiles faintly, “A drink for the road then.” She pours a healthy bit for them all, the sounds of the liquid filling glass makes for something the seer can concentrate on amidst the awkwardness that is having the three of them in the same room.

Raising her glass in a cheers, Eve knocks back a fair bit of her glass and allows a moment for the heat to burrow it’s way down to her belly and outwards to the rest of her body.

“Business is booming! I had a party for St. Patty’s day! You both missed it!” There are pale hands on hips as she gives both the men a stare. Eve noticeably didn’t answer the first question.

There’s a flurry of nerves in her belly as she looks from both of the men in front of her. They are identical but also so different. She bites her lip and gives that look, the one they know so well. She’s been involved in mischief. “Well.. I..”The hybrid wouldn't like it if Eve were you mention it, but for a moment, both of them look at her with nearly identical expressions on their face. A little expectation, a little warmth, a little bit of the specific expectation she might make them laugh. It's the Ghost who moves first, stepping forward to get himself a glass. He ends up taking both of the ones that Eve left on the counter, pouring half of one into the other. The lesser, he offers to his 'younger' self. "Come on," he says. "You can have half a drink if you're 'stopping by.' Didn't you hear her? You missed the party. Hurt her fucking feelings."

The hybrid gives him a flat look, ire back in full force. If you asked him why, he probably couldn't put a finger on it exactly. Secondhand guilt for the things he knows the Ghost has done, which he now must bear and express alone, considering that the third Teodoro has fucked off to Europe. Somebody has to be around looking like they sucked on a lemon. But he takes the glass— for Eve, rather than for his counterpart. With his other hand, he roughs his fingers over this beardy chin. "A toast to your health, tesoro. May you avoid questionable diseases." A glance at the Ghost, who merely laughs. They both drink their drinks.

The interactions between the two would be cause for Eve to giggle but she’s tryin to contain herself as she opens her mouth to drop bombs, “Well.. I.. time traveled to feudal Japan. There were so many bodies it was the end of some big battle, lots of blood, lots of boom. I was covered in gore.” Eve gets a disgusted look on her face. “But look!” she holds up a finger as she drinks more of the tequila. “I am alive and well so no worries!”

Her brow furrows, “Though my head was split from my body like Sleepy Hollow.. But then this lady with golden eyes put me back to together again! Tadaaaaa.” The dark haired woman jazzhands like her good friend Gabriel does. “This did all happen after I did Refrain with my new friend Dorothy!”

There’s another pause, “But I swear it is true. Gillian and Lynette can verify my outlandish tale!”

There was a lot in that sentence. The hybrid looks surprised. The Ghost manages not to look surprised at all, but he does drink down a considerable more percentage of the tequila (was it) in his glass, which probalby helps him regulate his facial expression.

A beat's hesitation. Then the bearded man drinks his tequila too. He steps over to sit on the stool nearest her, offering her his hand to draw her down to sit beside him. Come be beside me, please. His hands and limbs are in the same metabolic overdrive as ever, hot and dry like wrapped coals. These days, he has calluses from shoveling and chopping wood, instead of mostly punching the shit out of people and occasionally spending too many days in a row with knives.

Ghost, in the meantime, is casually pouring himself and Eve more to drink. It's not that he isn't listening very intently— it absolutely is that he's listening closer than he wants his other counterpart to know. He has a special interest in time-traveling, one guess as to why.

In contrast to Teo’s worked, rough hands, Eve ‘s are delicate and often stained with paint. The evidence of her more wild days can be seen from the scars on her hands. Being drawn closer to sit opposite of the hybrid.

“I think pieces of it were real. The blood and gore was on was all over us when we woke up, yuck.’ Eve hated that part of the journey, she had reeked at first. Eve waves her hand as she snakes out another to grab for her glass and to take another sip. “I think my ability mixed with Dorothy and the Refain caused a chain reaction of things inside our brains.” Eve looks from one to the other.

“I had a dream during my jaunt across the cosmos and it was of Erica Kravid. A beat, “I visited her at a stronghold somewhere, all those shadowtypes live. Working on something called The Structure.” Another pause, “She was going to throw me in there!.

"Erica Kravid," the hybrid says, then he glances sharply at the Ghost, whose expression is far too neutral and peaceable to be entirey honest with this appearance of benign ignorance. The hybrid's eyes narrow. His fingers tighten slightly on Eve's hands, but then loosen again. "The Structure," he repeats. "That sounds delightfully fucking ominous. No chance it had An Adjective somewhere in the subtitle?" But it's not that serious a question. He isn't really trying to pry. He's claimed for years that he would be staying out of the war, out of everything anymore, and by and large he's stuck to that. If you ask Francois, he's stuck to it too well.

But he only left because of the people. The losses. The pain, injury. And he's back now for the exact same reason. Eve is one of those people, and it's her pale, heart-shaped face that draws his eyes now as he studies her. "You look all right," he says. "No fragments of skin or blood lodged in your eyelashes, which is how it should be." It's a terrible joke. But it's a terrible joke about terrible situations he'd actually seen.

(In the background, the Ghost smiles. He rather thinks that all this makes the hybrid a weenie, but what else is new?)

"This Dorothy has quite a power," Teo states, finally. "Are you sure she's a friend? I'm not trying to get in the way. I'm just not sure about many things anymore, and the Structure sounds more definitive than anything good that I've heard of in a long time."

“Well lucky for you guys I bathed before you go here, ha ha.” She rolls her yes and nods her head. The circumstances are terrible but Eve is always joking, a light grin is shared with Ghost over Teo’s shoulder and Eve squeeze’s the hybrid’s hand tighter. “I think Dorothy is a nice lady, she’s cool and stuff. She can’t help that she can wink and then you lose fifty years or something.” A beat, “I’m kidding.” She’s smiling and reaching over to drink more of her tequila. The burn of the liquor settles in her belly and her nerves of having the two in the same room are fading away and in that place is liquid courage.

She doesn’t want to be all doom and gloom and beheadings though and so she’s waving her hand, “Let’s drink more.”

She reaches for the bottle to pour more tequila for herself and more for Ghost because he isn’t allowed to go anywhere until.. She’ll try to keep him for a few days. Close up shop. It’s fun running around Cat’s Cradle all naked and willy nilly. Except for when you forget to lock the doors, which she had forgotten to do multiple times. That thought makes her chuckle to herself as she sips more tequila. “I’m behaving mostly, are you?” She looks at both of them. “I know you, troublemakers, a little brooding but it’s sexy.” She would go on but then things would get awkward. “Where’s my little droid bot?” Eve is being fun and silly, wanting to leave the topic of her recent death alone. Or maybe just leaving it until later when she has more nerve to speak about what she fears is coming.

“I want to name it Spike.” She doesn’t even have one but she’s been pressing him for it.

"You can come out and see them," the hybrid says.

"That'd better not be a euphemism for something," the Ghost replies, a lopsided smile on his face. Which is beardless and benign, and looks the same age as the other one's, despite the fact that there's a certain air of creepy old man that he's leaning into right now, even as he leans forward onto the counter, his elbows set stolidly apart. He's playing around, of course. He isn't actually all that possessive of Eve; she's as free a spirit as she can be, without being a specter floating through time, possessing new bodies here and there, murdering and causing ruckus out of inscrutable self-interest. He would like her to stay free. Keeping her hands clean of murder is optional.

"We can drink outside and look in the truck," Teo says. The 'good' one does. The 'better' one; the beraded one. "Come on. We can bring our drinks." That's him tacitly assenting. He fills his own cup a little, then offers her his arm. "You can decide how you feel about it after you look. But there are only five right now and the software can run three at a time with optimal responsivity. I'm working on it." Sort of. Mostly, he's accepting the limits of the technology of the current time, but it's fine.

"Am I invited?" Ghost asks.

"I know you'll invite yourself," the hybrid replies, dryly.

Eve loves that idea and her mouth drops open in a wild grin, “Fuck ye- Ghost.” Eve is cracking up at him and shakes her head, giving him a look. She’s as free as a bird but she’s not clean of murder. Though a free bird, not any other has really matched like Teo/Ghost. It warms her heart the mock show Ghost puts on and she wrinkles her nose at him behind Teo’s back and a grin. Behave. There is more tequila and then Eve is sipping it before hopping to her feet and nodding her head. “Lead the way!” Pale legs peeking out from her dress.

With a great gulp, she follows the man out. His beardless face is her eyes focus before she’s drabbing a arm over Teo’s shoulder with a flick of her tongue in Ghost’s direction. Not a dare for his to do anything. “You been working hard on these, I have to see. Ahh ahh, shiny software. Your brain is so big Teo. How do you manage?” Eve doesn’t know half as much about tech as Teo does but she does know cars, the mechanic in her from her dad coming out as she gathers her hair in a loose ponytail, drink briefly balanced between her thighs.

Outside, it's still brisk as fuck. Naturally, it's the hybrid who moves to take off his coat and wrap it around Eve's shoulders, before he leads the way out. He probably didn't have to lead; Eve has one of those terribly flexible powersets and catlike curiosities that probably would have put her in the right place without any help at all. But he steps up to the back of the truck, jingling out the keys, fits them in the lock. Click click, a little grinding of the handle. He glances at the Ghost, who does what Ghost does best— invisibly but thoroughly scouting for spectators. It's quiet out here today, though, and the alley is narrow.

Clank. Teo pulls it open.

They're crated. Five crates. But the one nearest the door— in anticipation of this moment, of course! is open. The 'dog' is such a tiny thing, shorter than Eve's knees. However, even the top of it, sticking out of packing peanuts, gleams smooth, aerdynamic, very black. Black is the chassis, its finely machined metal parts. Black is the front dome of it, glass, the faint glint of tiny lens parts within. "I think my brother's head was bigger than mine," he remarks, looking down. "If he'd become a time-traveling assassin, who knows what we'd have now? You should know they aren't completely autonomous, or anything. I— or someone else has to be there piloting." Hana. He means Hana. Who Eve might not want up in her business. Then he says, "Hey."

Because the Ghost is going over, sticking his arms in. Hoisting the little robot out by its little robot hips, as if it were a puppy being delivered for Christmas instead of, you know!! a prospectively killer tech weapon. Ghost doesn't stop, naturally. He picks it up to peer in its 'face.' "I half recognize this," he says. "Good job. A basset hound to the hunters I used to see."

“Spike!” Eve claps her hands, making sure that the coat that Teo placed around her shoulders that was welcomed with a brush of her fingers on the back of his hand doesn’t fall off. “Well maybe in another timeline that happened. Even bigger brain, even bigger bot.”

“Oh it’s so cute Teo! Questo è fantastico!” Ghost picking it up to inspect it has Eve doing the same, they look alike in their weird catlike approach to studying it. “Can I keep her? I won’t hurt her. I swear.” Eve hasn’t had a pet in forever and well it’s not living but look at that black helmet! The pale woman grins over at Teo, “Master Craftsman, nifty fingers of yours. How long did it take?” The dark haired woman almost wants to take it apart and put it back together again so she could know it’s insides. Leaning against the alleyway wall she takes a sip of her drink and gives Teo a proud look. “You’ve got some friends.” But she knows he knows that he.. Is a friend and always welcome here and his DRONES! “Ahahaha Major wouldn’t like all that goes on in there, but my room is the most ta-.” She stops herself before Ghost gives her a look.

“Living room it is.”

There’s a chuckle out of the woman and Eve nods her head drinking more, the tequila is doing it’s job and her body sways just a little, feet still crossed at the ankle. The compliment from Ghost to Teo is noted by Eve and she grins sneakily, yes a good step. “So you drive these puppies into battle or what?”

Her joy is so shiny and bright, Teo likes it. They both do. In contrast, the hybrid seems to be permanently dour, and the Ghost wears his good mood the way a cooling corpse wears clingwrap shiny and tight over the surface of him. Sincerity doesn't suit the Laudanis like it used to. They're fortunate Eve is around. ('Fortunate'.) (Well, at least she's not, you know, stealing one of the drones or anythimg.) "Well that will be the idea," Teo answers. "They did fine when I was doing field tests around the mountains, but the cities will have their own challenges.

"And people actually trying to shoot back." He shrugs, then looks at them again. "Do you think it's cowardly? Back when this country was still running wars, there were a lot of questions about the ethics of doing violence when you face no risk to yourself. And I guess by 'back when,' I also mean from other times I remember, too."

The Ghost makes a disrespectful sound in the back of his throat. But it's gently, with a muscular grace, that he moves to set the drone back in its box. He grabs the lid and places it over, and moves to hoist it up. He's inclined to agree with Eve— that this one should stay here. For what reasons, it's hard to say. He isn't' making a voyeurism joke out loud. "You said the living room?" he asks her. "Somewhere a little out of sight would be a good idea. Under the endtable, I'll make a gap behind the couch."

"Grazie," Teo says, after a moment. Smiling at her. He is not thanking Ghost for the manual labor. But he is raising his glass to her now, and hulping back a mouthful of tequila.

“Bah, that’s like asking if it’s okay to use your ability in combat. Every advantage to live another day il mio mago,” White teeth peeking out as she grins at the questions of that old debate, she blinks at the remembering other times bit. They are orbiting the same space with the sideways viewing is a thing. Maybe Teo has more insight in Looking Glass, maybe Ghost remembers something. But the tequila is telling her that the time for that is not now, she’s got a new toy and Ghost is a gentleman for offering to carry it up. “Yes please, caro.” A hand snakes out to grip his arm as she pushes herself away from the alleyway wall. The graffiti that Brynn did of the cat’s playing in a jazzband sticking out under the light, it fits Eve and Cat’s Cradle.

Wine colored lips are in another smile, she never stops around these two. Pale gray eyes flint to Ghost’s retreating back and Eve knocks back her tequila before pulling at Teo’s arm, “One song, let me sing you one song. It’s new, then you can go.” To Hana, the Hounds, his spouse that he fights with all the damn time. Her attraction to Teo is well understandable seeing as he was the one that she first knew and had been on dates with, her eyes catch the back of Ghost’s head and she smiled faintly. Things have a way of working out, in their odd/complicated manners. Eve was fine with complicated, as long as it made her feel safe at the end of the day.

“If we get him drunk enough he’ll sing very loudly and off key, come on.”

Teo mutters in half-hearted protest. "That sounds so fatalistic," he says. "'One song, let me sing you one song, then you can go.' What kind of story are we writing?" But his smile is amiable. The man doth not protest very much at all, to be honest. He closes the back of the truck again, with a rakkarakka noise of metal on metal. He takes her arm. He manages not to stare suspicious knives into Ghost's back, the moment before Ghost vanishes around the corner. "And why does the soundtrack have to be terrible?"

But he goes with her. Of course he does. He's always been easy to get along with, until he wasn't.